Friedman Inflation Quotes & Sayings

Five simple truths embody most of what we know about inflation: Inflation is a monetary phenomenon arising from a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output (though, of course, the reasons for the increase in money may be various). In today's world government determines - or can determine - the quantity of money. There is only one cure for inflation: a slower rate of increase in the quantity of money. It takes time - measured in years, not months - for inflation to develop; it takes time for inflation to be cured. Unpleasant side effects of the cure are unavoidable. — Milton Friedman

Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. — Milton Friedman

Every economist knows that minimum wages either do nothing or cause inflation and unemployment. That's not a statement, it's a definition. — Milton Friedman

Higher government spending will not lead to more rapid monetary growth and inflation if additional spending is financed either by taxes or by borrowing from the public. In that case, government has more to spend, the public has less. Higher government spending is matched by lower private spending for consumption and investment. However, — Milton Friedman

Inflation is a monetary phenomenon. It is made by or stopped by the central bank. — Milton Friedman

Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation. — Milton Friedman

Inflation', wrote Milton Friedman in a famous definition, 'is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, in the sense that it cannot occur without a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output. — Niall Ferguson

Central bankers always try to avoid their last big mistake. So every time there's the threat of a contraction in the economy, they'll over stimulate the economy, by printing too much money. The result will be a rising roller coaster of inflation, with each high and low being higher than the preceding one. — Milton Friedman

No central banker would disagree with the proposition that inflation is primarily a monetary phenomenon. Not one of them will disagree that every inflation has been accompanied by a rapid increase in the quantity of money and every deflation by a decline in the quantity of money. — Milton Friedman

Inflation is taxation without representation. — Milton Friedman

Significant changes in the growth rate of money supply, even small ones, impact the financial markets first. Then, they impact changes in the real economy, usually in six to nine months, but in a range of three to 18 months. Usually in about two years in the US, they correlate with changes in the rate of inflation or deflation."
"The leads are long and variable, though the more inflation a society has experienced, history shows, the shorter the time lead will be between a change in money supply growth and the subsequent change in inflation. — Milton Friedman

If you continue to use monetary policy to attempt to promote full employment the result would be that you would have higher inflation, and that you would not have lower unemployment. — Milton Friedman

On the contrary, the inflation itself is partly a response to the reaction. As it has become politically less attractive to vote higher taxes to pay for higher spending, legislators have resorted to financing spending through inflation, a hidden tax that can be imposed without having been voted, taxation without representation. That is no more popular in the twentieth century than it was in the eighteenth. — Milton Friedman

[U]nemployment is ... a side effect of the cure for inflation. — Milton Friedman

Inflation is taxation without legislation — Milton Friedman

One reason inflation is so destructive is because some people benefit greatly while other people suffer; society is divided into winners and losers. The winners regard the good things that happen to them as the natural result of their own foresight, prudence, and initiative. They regard the bad things, the rise in the prices of the things they buy, as produced by forces outside their control. Almost everyone will say that he is against inflation; what he generally means is that he is against the bad things that have happened to him. — Milton Friedman

Rapid increases in the quantity of money produce inflation. Sharp decreases produce depression. — Milton Friedman